


I'm Not Gonna Hurt You - Yet

by Neffectual



Series: one step forward, two steps back [6]
Category: BritWres, Progress Wrestling
Genre: Aggression, Anger, Angst, Gen, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: Ahead of the deathmatch at Alexandra Palace, Jimmy thinks about the Progress title, what it means to him, what it means to Haskins, and who's the most deserving.





	I'm Not Gonna Hurt You - Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Dismemberment Song" by Blue Kid.

It’s a fucking joke, Haskins daring to suggest the Progress title is his, like Jimmy didn’t destroy every friendship he had for that, like he didn’t cheat and burn and bleed for it over and over, like he didn’t have to have it wrenched away from his grasping fingers, nails still digging in as he desperately tried to hold onto something that made him feel important and powerful. So Haskins, who gave the title up, suggesting he’s got a claim on it? A fucking joke, and Jimmy’s not having any of it.

He’s long known that he won’t walk away from this business; he’ll crawl out of the wreckage, bleeding. There are parts of him that never stop aching, wake him in the night with the pain and leave him shuffling awkwardly to the bathroom, scrabbling for pills and dry-swallowing them to quiet the screams he bites his lips rather than let fly free. And maybe if he had a wife and kids like Mark it’d be different – but he doesn’t think so. He’s known for a long time that the business he loves is going to rip him apart piece by piece, a slow dismemberment from the knees up, and he’s made peace with it. There’s no other way he’d have it. In Jimmy’s opinion, life is being slowly filleted from the toes, the knife moving ever closer to the brain, and only idiots pretend that it’s not happening.

So Mark wants a deathmatch, does he? Wants to try and play Jimmy at his own game, without even stopping to think that he’s Jimmy fucking Havoc, of course the deck is marked, of course the cards are stacked in his favour, that he’s lost half the pieces and that if he gets bored halfway through, he’ll use the board to beat Haskins to death. Doesn’t he remember what Jimmy did to Ospreay, what Jimmy’s done to everyone who comes for him on home turf, because playing dirty is what he does?

Unofficially, he understands Mark’s feelings on the situation. Jimmy lost, he’ll admit that, he lost the title in a match, hard-fought, and Mark had to leave it behind because he was too injured to defend it. Jimmy knows that feeling, too the helplessness of being told “wait” and “heal” and “patience” and how your blood boils with the need to go back and remind everyone who you really are, to wipe their fucking pity away with admiration, or horror, or a little of both. He knows what it feels like to watch things slip through your fingers and desperately wish it was different. Mark wants the title because he feels like he never got a chance to properly defend it, that it’s still his in spirit, because he never lost it in competition.

The thing is, Jimmy doesn’t care, because he’s a cunt, and it’s in every little shrug as the crowd boo – what did they expect? He doesn’t have some sweet, poetic little reason for wanting the title, he just fucking wants it, because it’s been too long since he got his hands on it, and it was a lot of fun last time. It’s not some hearkening back to glory days, like Haskins is doing – he just wants it. And what Jimmy Havoc wants, he takes, no matter who needs to take a chair shot for him to make it happen. He’s not a nice man, and he’s starting to wonder about the general IQ of those around him that they’re still surprised by that.

In the darkest part of the night, he might silently admit to himself, never to anyone else, that when he had the Progress title, he was important. No, more than that… he got a reaction. If you can’t get a reaction in this business, it doesn’t matter how good you might be at winning matches, you’re done. The crowd need to hate you or love you or fear you, and the only good silent crowd is a crowd in dumbstruck horror at what you just did, too shocked and scared to even be angry for a moment. So it’s fucking galling that he has to crook his fingers at the crowd to get some sort of chant going, to get anything back from the slack-jawed punters occupying the seats around him. He’s Jimmy fucking Havoc, the disrespectful cunts need to make some fucking noise. Don’t they remember what happened last time he didn’t get the fucking respect he was owed?

This time, the victim might see the chair coming, but Jimmy reckons that just gives him more places to hit him. Bad neck, Mark? That’s unfortunate, considering Jimmy’s going to spend his time slamming objects into Haskins’ head until he barely has a neck anymore, never mind a neck problem. Sure, Jimmy’s got his own weak spots; the knee’s never been right, and the other one’s pretty fucked too these days, but he’ll work around them. He’s got new scars and new wounds and new ways to make someone bleed out across the canvas. One thing’s certain – he hopes the 2000 people at Ally Pally are ready. Because they’re going to be seeing a fucking murder.


End file.
